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I’m going to hearken back to my last blog, where I mentioned that I frequently get asked exactly what I eat and exactly what my workouts are. I always debate what to tell people, and here’s why.

I could tell you exactly what I eat. I could also tell you exactly how much I work out – what my strength program is and how often and what duration my cardio is and what time of day, and what ‘extras’ I do. But odds are it won’t necessarily help you.

The foods I eat, that Warren eats, and Michelle eats are probably not all the same things. I think we follow the same basic ‘way’ of eating – 5 or 6 times a day, three small-ish meals and two or three snacks. We all do cardio and strength training. But I believe we do variations on a theme. Fitness-wise, Warren and Michelle run; I don’t, I spin.Warren eats salads like they are going out of style; I hate salad, so I eat cooked vegetables instead. But yet we all got to the same place.

I developed my eating plan by doing research and finding a plan online that basically fit how I ideally like to eat; I really had no idea where to start, and wanted someone to lay out how and what I should eat. I found a menu online that looked good, tweaked it to my likes and calorie level, and made changes as I went. For example, I refused to eat celery just because some site said I needed to; I hate celery and there are a million other veg out there I can eat and won’t hate – as long as I eat healthy-prepared veg, it’s all good. And stop saying “I hate vegetables”. Odds are a) you haven’t tried all vegetables and b) you REALLY mean “they don’t taste as good as French fries” (which don’t count as a vegetable, despite what the US gov’t wants people to think). No, generally they don’t, they aren’t full of salt and sugar and fat and crap. Shut up and eat them.

The same goes for exercise – it’s intensity and duration that counts, not what exactly the exercise is. Yes, running gives great bang for your exercise buck. But if you hate it, you won’t do it. And by hate, I don’t mean “it makes me uncomfortable because I’m out of shape”. If you are just out of shape and can see yourself liking it if you could do it well, just do it and don’t be a candy-ass, you’ll get better. If it’s really not your thing and bores you, try something else, just do something where you work hard and sweat a lot and do it for as long as you can, and the next time try to do more.